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</font><BR><p align="center" class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael Lightline - March 17th, Saint
Patrick’s Day, 2016.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p align="center" class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael
– T/R-JL<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Individual
duty in a democracy)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Government
of, by, and for the people)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(The
Forth Estate)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Public
policy in your own hands)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Genuine
sentiment V.S. sentimentality)<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Sentimentality
warps true values)<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Open-minded
meditation—keeping up with things)<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Individual
religion and organized churches)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Smugness
and resignation)<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(True
Democracy)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Individual
freedom & responsibility)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Dear
Michael and Mother Spirit, tonight I would ask you to address yourself to our
social and political life, if that is OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I know the two of you generally direct yourselves to our personal,
spiritual lives--what is happening right within us and directly around us--our
friends and acquaintances. But it occurred to me that we also have a political
life. We are always part of some political group in our close-by towns, cities,
states, and countries. This is another kind of relationship as well, so tonight
could you to speak to that part of our personal lives as well?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael:
Good evening, this is Michael. Mother Spirit and I are always happy to give you
our viewpoint on anything that you feel is important to you. As we’ve teased
you with before, we can’t give you the stock market happenings tomorrow, but
then again neither we, nor any other spiritual beings, know what that will be.
Rather, we suggest that more and more you get a deep feeling that the future
has not happened yet. We all live in an Eternal Now, and what we call the
future is only our own projection. For even so far as God himself gives us all
a degree of free will, even he cannot fully anticipate exactly what we will
choose to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Individual
duty in a democracy)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Your
free will is real, and so part of it--part of the choices you make are those
that relate to your fellow citizens. You asked if these are the kinds of relationships
that we can address as your spiritual parents, and certainly, my dear ones,
they are very much a part of your spiritual life--how you relate to the larger
political organizations of which you are intrinsically a part. You are a
citizen and your democracies especially depend upon you getting a good feeling
for what your duties are, in the sense of what you owe your fellow
citizens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>It
can be a very welcome duty to stay tuned to what is happening all around you on
these different levels of your cities, your states, and your countries. In this
regard I want to extend an invitation for you to open your Urantia Book again,
especially those who have yet to get to this part, and read about the Evolution
of Government. It is a very interesting chapter with wonderful insight, one to
read and get an understanding of the history of how you on Urantia have
arranged yourselves in terms of social power, one to another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>It
starts with the most basic kind of tribal organization, a council of elders in
a </span><span lang="ES-TRAD" style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;'>consanguíneos</span><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'> group of families, small groups where
everybody knew each other and just naturally followed those who were older with
the greatest experience, as well as with the greatest mentality and intellect,
and had proven themselves to be the wisest. There was a good, instinctual
following of those ideas that arose and made the most sense to everybody there.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Yet
how quickly this developed into a hereditary kind of leadership, just naturally
following the children of a great leader, and how this became established in
what you call the hereditary monarchies of all the early empires. We might note
that this is still followed today. In the Middle East is a country involved in
an enormous, bloody civil war where its previous ruler cost 40 to 50,000 lives
to come into power and subdue all his opponents. Now his son has murdered
hundreds of thousands of his countrymen and driven literally millions of others
into exile to maintain power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>But
also alongside these early hereditary rulers there were the beginnings of what
you call a congress, a body of men who represented a larger group of people
than just those of the ruler and his immediate, surrounding supporters. These
have slowly gotten greater and greater power. Consider that point in England’s
history where the Magna Carta limited the power of kings, and later, where
kings were actually put to death. It was the ending of human nature to see
their rulers as ruling in some Divine Right coming from God himself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>In
your modern democracies now throughout the world you have a division of power
between an executive--a single person with certain powers and limitations, a large
congress representing the people, and then a judicial branch with up-to-date,
day-by-day interpretations of the law. Here an executive has the power to
enforce the law, a congress that actually writes the law, and then a judicial
branch that interprets the law.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Government
of, by, and for the people)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>As
you have read in your Urantia Book, this same scheme applies even in the
heavenly realms. This is what you call a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">democracy</i>--where
the government is--as one of your wonderful presidents once stated--a
government <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of the people</i>--whose
representatives of the people come from them, not from some hereditary
monarchy. It is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">by the people</i> through
open elections, and then <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for the people</i>
by their own choices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Mother
Spirit and I have pointed out several times this is all based upon an assumed
transparency<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where the people can have
some grasp on what is truly happening, in spite of what different political
parties may be promulgating through the television and other media. Some way of
checking this necessitates what you call the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">freedom of the press</i>. Here in your United States this is spelled
out in the first amendment of your constitution, the realization that without a
free press, without a free dissemination of information, everything falls
apart.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Of
course in all working democracies, different political parties are formed to
represent different constituencies of people--from the poorest to the most
wealthy, from agrarian farming groups to those in large cities, and so forth. Different
constituencies represent folks who have different points of view just because
of the lives they live. Transparency means a number of different news outlets
so people with a great good curiosity can get different points of view on
anything that arises.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(The
Forth Estate)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>The
free press that makes up a good, functioning democracy is what you call the
Fourth Estate right next to the executive, legislative, and judicial. And so it
has evolved in your modern democracies, giving rise to political processes
where the people themselves have a much greater opportunity to evaluate their
perspective leaders because you have an intense and very transparent competition.
Your President or Prime Minister is no longer chosen in a traditional
“smoke-filled back room” and then merely presented to the people. Now, when the
different candidates can challenge each other openly in public debates, the
people can have a greater sense of where each stands and what their policies
would be.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>This
is good. This competition is necessary. It is the only way to ensure you do
have some level of transparency. It also means that it is incumbent upon you--each
of you, my dears--to be well informed and curious about the whole process. Be
curious about the folks who are putting themselves forth to be your
representative. Refuse a kind of apathy, or even a cynicism, that says, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Well, it doesn’t matter if I vote or
not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is all somehow beyond me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>A
well-informed and interested electorate is the only basic foundation. As one of
your great statesman said, “I know no safe repository of the ultimate powers of
society but the people themselves.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
it is the slow growth of genuine democracy throughout the world that Mother
Spirit and I are so enthusiastic about. We can see it evolving, even if there
are still those terrible conditions all over the world where it is being suppressed.
Now, in your electronic age, it is becoming more and more difficult for some
petty dictator to isolate his people and give them only what he himself chooses
to reveal. Yes, there are still state controlled presses, but even that power
is diminishing. On all levels you are getting closer to the ideal dissemination
of political power into smaller and smaller more local groups where the
politicians are closer to the people they represent, and answerable to
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Yet
it always depends upon the individual being interested and willing to spend the
time to be well informed, then to cast their vote, and continue to see what is
followed out. The competition is necessary and good. Now you have evolved to
the point where you have not only majority rule and the ideal of one man, one
vote--including women, of course--but also minority rights where you avoid the
simple-minded tyranny of the majority.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Public
policy in your own hands)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>So
think about all these principles that I have just mentioned, dear ones. Do your
best to understand what is really happening. Hopefully every system can evolve
with more and more people being involved. More and more your lives are being
put into your own hands, and not the hands of some petty dictator far away gathering
and maintaining all the power to himself. This is the direction toward an ideal
future—the inexorable dissemination of power into the hands of those where it has
always come from, the people themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>I
know these suggestions have been on a very general level, so if there are any
questions or comments you have, about this or anything else this evening, go
ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Student
#1: Well, that is a great topic. We are actually--in this area--having a study-meeting
on April 30<sup>th</sup>, on government and the Urantia Book’s government papers.
Also, there is a paper on our Thought Adjusters that seems to be very pertinent
to government as well. I hope to put more of that information on line for
everyone, but I thought I’d put a blurb out here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Here
is the question it seems to me we have to deal with--the idea of sentimentality,
OK? We want to be caring, but we can carry that too far and be too sentimental.
That way we obscure the real issues with some kind of sentimentality. Can you
talk about that?<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Genuine
sentiment V.S. sentimentality)<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael:
Well, yes, my son. I would ask you to consider that there is a great difference
between sentimentality and genuine sentiment--which is a word you have for
emotion, your basic feelings about something, that has no negative aspect to
it. It is just expressing whatever your sentiment is about something, whereas
sentimentality has a very negative connotation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Sentimentality
is often a kind of wishful thinking with respect to the past. In other words,
it is not a true memory, not a true assessment of the past, but seeing the past
through what you call rose-colored-glasses. It is not the true past, even if
you yourself have experienced it, but warped, twisted one way or another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Sometimes
sentimentality is only what you would call the positive or the good feelings
about the past and forgetting or neglecting all the hard work it took you to
get to where you are. It can also be the exact opposite, a kind of seeing only
the worst of the past--all the struggle, all the pain and suffering. In any
case, sentimentality refers to a false past. It is not truly and fully what
happened, but rather a kind of blurred, even a lazy way of thinking about
things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>With
these false notions and understanding of the past, you are bound to make faulty
decisions right in the present. Sentimentality causes you to go wildly astray in
making good, wise decisions about the future. So do you understand the
difference between genuine sentiment and sentimentality?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how sentimentality is bound to lead you
astray?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Student:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, I see that. I was kind-of more concerned
about value judgment--a judgment on the values of issues. Sometimes a stranded whale
up on a beach brings a lot of people together to help, but then the problem of
people being in homeless camps doesn’t galvanize anyone. It’s interesting how having
no jobs doesn’t galvanize people; or other issues. It seems to me like our
priorities get skewered.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Sentimentality
warps true values)<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael:
My son, I guess we have a misunderstanding. I was talking directly about value--what
values you gain from the past, and how these can be enormously distorted
through something called sentimentality. One of the most common forms of this
is an old person talking about their past and blurring over, giving a false
impression about what really happened, and saying everything was so much
better, or easier. Or it can be the other way, emphasizing the negative.
There’s the classical instance of old folks telling about how hard it was when
they were youngsters, having to wade through three feet of snow with bare feet
to get to school every day. Both are pure sentimentality.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>In
any case these are directly concerned with value. If you have the wrong values
of what really happened in the past, you are bound to make terrible mistakes in
the present. If you look at some present problem--say unemployment—with the
sentimental notion that it is no better or worse than it has ever been; this is
a kind of sloppy thinking that is missing the value about what could be a changing
problem.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Student
#1: Thank you. That was very helpful.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Open-minded
meditation—keeping up with things)<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael:
Right. Sentimentality always has that distortion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is something called genuine sentiment
which is a correct vision and grasp and understanding of all that went into
your past experiences. This is where Mother Spirit and I have taught a kind of
open-minded meditation where you just sit down, be still a while, and say, “OK,
God, you have my own soul. What have you got for me—today?” Then just relive
moments, especially very critical, meaningful, and valuable moments of your
past in all their fullness, all that was involved--good or bad, painful or
pleasurable: whatever it was!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This can
get you good value day-by-day. You can keep up with yourself--keep up with the
true balance of your life and then, from this position, you can more
accurately, spiritually evaluate something like homelessness, something like
your political choices and policies, because you are living in a very full
reality, not just sentimentality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Unfortunately,
with old age without this meditation, without this constant coming up to date
and staying up to date, people can relapse into very faulty memories of the
past--good or bad--that can so totally warp their own actual observations and
perceptions day-to-day. This is a tragedy, and I’m sure you know folks who
blame everybody else in some incident that happened way back in the past. They
are still being held down by their own sentimentality towards that event, and
how it cripples them even in the present. That is the true tragedy of sentimentality.
All the while, keep in mind that genuine sentiment, genuine feeling, is
actually the real stuff of life. Thank you for your question.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Student
#2: Michael, could you speak to sentimentality as it relates to the efficacy of
the church?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael:
Yes, my son. As you know, we make a distinction between church, and religion--which
in the most fundamental sense is your unique individual relationship to God and
to the whole spiritual aspect of your life. That is your true religion, but
then this can be socialized into what people generally think of when you say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">religion</i>. They are thinking of
Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, and so forth. <o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Individual
religion and organized churches)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Here
so much depends upon the particular spiritual leader of the group insofar as
every social organization like this does have a past, it does have continuity
through time, and a kind of group-think or group consciousness that is
involved. This is the purpose, the reward, and the value of a group. Further,
when a group gets together there is generally some long-established form they
follow in their worship. They may start with singing together, then a quote
from scripture, maybe a sermon on the text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Almost all of the religions of the world have these elements in them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>As
the hymns and scripture relate to a partisan way of seeing life--from the past,
folks can get caught up in an enormous amount of sentimentality not truly
reflecting a broader view, but getting political since they are promulgating a
certain way of looking at life. This is both the value of the church--this
viewpoint, but can also be where they are warping the past. They are not seeing
it in its wholeness but only as it represents one way of looking at life, be it
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>As
any church, any religion excludes part of reality just to promulgate its own
view of things, that is almost a definition of sentimentality, a way of warping
the fullness of the whole human experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is why it is so valuable that today you have, with your modern media
in your more democratic countries, a freedom of religion where an individual
can check out so many different ways of seeing things by different religions. This
is the greatest check on sentimentality. Does that fill the bill? Was this what
you were thinking of?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Student:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Machiventa recently spoke about something
that I believe the Urantia Book has also covered--a sort of a false sentiment,
especially toward the poor and underprivileged. We’re trying to wrap our heads
around what he was really trying to say. Is that enough information to work
with?<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Smugness
and resignation)<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael:
Yes, my son. That is what I said: sentimentality is a false way of grasping
reality. It can be the way some religions preach a kind of fatalism on a major
theme Mother Spirit and I have gone into over and over again because people are
so curious about it--the notion of reincarnation. It can foster both smugness
and resignation--especially in those societies with a very rigid caste system.
In those societies where almost everybody believes in reincarnation, if someone
is born poor into a lower caste, they somehow deserved this. Somehow this is
righteous. Somehow this is God’s way of punishing them, or instructing them.
This is the rankest kind of sentimentality. Those born into the upper class or more
wealthy strata of society feel justified looking down their nose at the poor,
while smugly disregarding any way of alleviating their suffering. And in the
poor it only offers a resignation that stifles ambition. So I agree. Does that
explain exactly what we are getting at here?<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Student:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes. Machiventa was referring to a world-wide
collection of religions as being interpreted basically through the eyes of biblical
study. With reference to the teaching “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a
day; but teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime,” I was trying to
couch this question around conventional Christianity as it is being lived in
the modern society of the United States. But I see your reference--it is
probably similar--the reincarnation reference in some religions is a corollary of
what happens in the church here. I couldn’t put my finger on it, except that
the church fosters feeding people on a regular basis, which is why I see that
as the “fishes thing” People really need to be taught how to fend for
themselves, rather than to be seekers of alms.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael:
Yes, my son. In your Urantia Book it states that for a lot of people the church
promulgates a kind of smug self-satisfaction for those who have, and a
disregard for those who have not, rather than teaching the poor how to be
self-sustaining and creative, productive members of society. That kind of
sentimentality is also a way of keeping them in their place, maintaining the
status quo rather than being truly progressive and evolving to a more
egalitarian society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Student
#2: Thank you for your comments, Michael, I appreciate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Michael:
Right. Indeed sentimentality can be a kind of fatalism where the conditions of
one’s birth are immutable. But if you see each person starting out--at any
level of society, economically--starting out as a personality directly from God
with their own intrinsic value, then you are drawn toward a kind of democracy
where even the poorest of a society are given a chance to better themselves
through education, to be self-sustaining. They can be productive, creative
members of society, rather than being encouraged just to accept their lot in
life, as you say.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(True
Democracy)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>True
democracy is seeing every person as equal in the eyes of God, not just as a
member of a caste, or a social, or political, or economic group, but as individuals.
It’s this particular woman, that specific man, this child. This is the true
democracy that will, in time, lead to a better, more free and open, creative
and productive society, because everybody is involved. Getting away from
smugness and fatalism, every individual is taught to accept their full response-ability—their
ability-to-respond to their particular situation. Now are there any other
questions or comments this evening?<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Well,
my dears, I thank you for your attention and your curiosity. Mother Spirit
spoke last time on this wonderful quality of curiosity--just being interested
and finding interesting things to make your lives worthwhile, and exciting, and
expanding--ever expanding, ever growing more and more knowledge and actual
contact with reality. Look to greater understanding across all these different churches
and religions and levels of society as all the different cultures of your world
become available now. <o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>(Individual
freedom & responsibility)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>This
is the marvel of modern electronics. You can take your little electronic
device, go outside by yourself in the woods, and talk with someone half a world
away. This dissemination of power is leading to more and more individual
freedom, and calling for more and more individual responsibility. So respond!--and
be a larger part of your own life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR><p class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style='font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;'>Think
deeply about these things, my dear ones. Enjoy them, and be in my love. Feel
deeply my peace. Good evening.<o:p></o:p></span></p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><BR> </div></body>
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